Plasma flow in the near and distant geomagnetic tail
Conference
·
OSTI ID:6795449
Measurements of the bulk flow of plasma in the outer magnetosphere were first made a little over a decade ago with Los Alamos instruments on the Vela satellites. During the invervening years, as flow measurements have been made with improved instruments and by other satellites they have come to play a crucial role in the development of our understanding of the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere. For example, they were the means of discovery of the magnetosphere's boundary layer and of plasma vortices within the plasma sheet. They were the essential ingredient in the identification of signatures of magnetic reconnection at the magnetopause. And they were indispensable in clarifying the complex phenomena in the magnetotail accompanying substorms and in showing that these phenomena are consistent with a substorm model involving magnetic reconnection at a near-earth neutral line. Most recently, magnetotail plasma flow measurements by the ISEE-3 satellite at distances as great as 230 R/sub E/ have been instrumental in fixing the average location of the distant neutral line at approx. 60 to 120 R/sub E/ and in identifying plasmoids (i.e., severed sections of the plasma sheet), released during substorms and escaping down-tail. This paper reviews the features of magnetotail plasma flow, describes the most recent observations, and discusses their implications for magnetospheric physics.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 6795449
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-84-1992; CONF-8406167-3; ON: DE84014029
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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